4 Things That Would Accelerate More Women Leading Tech Firms

Jan Bruce
, ContributorI write about stress and success, risk, balance and business.Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

This week as Twitter goes public, let’s reintroduce the question about why aren’t more women at the helm of technology companies and other growth industries. I raise this on the eve of Twitter’s IPO because I believe this is bigger than a “hey, no fair” issue. A significant part of our country’s “business DNA” is the belief that diversity benefits research, development, and innovation—and boosts profit!

But judging by the numbers, according to recent article in the Boston Globe, (“Is the Glass Ceiling Gone?”), women and men alike agree there aren’t enough women running our leading businesses, running the government, or running our investment industry, either—and the answer isn’t to just hope more women show up, but to make it happen.

So where are the women? Are they not banging hard enough on those tech doors? Claire Cain Miller points out that while women are making headway in law and business, tech’s doors are “virtually closed” to women—worse than that, it seems many women are banging on the door to get out: Women leave the tech industry at twice the rate of men, says Miller. And a recent report by the Anita Borg Institute cites a lack of promotions, time away from families, and an unwelcoming corporate culture.

Let’s Not Play the Blame Game

Rather than rehash the blame game (Why don’t they promote more women? Why don’t more women want to get ahead?), we need to change the way we view this issue altogether. I’ve identified four of the stumbling blocks keeping us from proportional female representation in the top echelons of our growth businesses.

1. We need more women entrepreneurs.

Many of the leaders of today’s top technology companies began as entrepreneurs, but women are under-represented in the rank and file of entrepreneurs and startup founders. More women in the startup leadership ranks will lead to proportionate representation amongst successful startups and begin to build up a pool of eligible leaders for the future.

Second, entrepreneurs and startups feed venture funds and board rooms.Successful CEOs and top management in today’s growth companies go on to be VC partners, and ultimately directors of companies. In a recent Bits blog piece in the New York Times that suggested 25 eligible women for Twitter’s board of directors, all but four come straight from media. Media and education, fields where women have for a while been proportionately represented, now have a large pool of credentialed, eligible leaders and Directors.

2. Tech is 24/7 and many women want more balance.

A recent essay by Elissa Strauss on Salon (“I’m Not Ambitious and That’s OK”), in which she says that, essentially, the work-life discussion tends to focus on the most hard-driving women—women, she says, she doesn’t aspire to be.

She writes, “…workplace flexibility doesn’t just mean being able to sit out a weekend conference in Geneva, but being able to pick up your kids at 6:30 p.m. because there is really nobody else to do it, or having paid sick days so you can take care of them and still be able to make rent. Of course, I care about ending the gender gap in all strata; it’s just that these issues are bigger than helping a few women land CEO positions.”

Having balance and leaning in don’t inherently cause a conflict, but they are more likely to do so in a business culture that is 24/7. I think women necessarily think twice about what they want to do in those cultures: head for the exit, sit back? All of which likely keeps them from advancing and leading in those cultures proportionately.

3. Accessible health and dependent care benefits matter.

We generally accept that women are the gatekeepers and primary decision makers when it comes to childcare. This plays a role in the types of work conditions they choose, no doubt. But women not only care about childcare – they are also the gatekeepers of healthcare for their families.

Furthermore, they care about health: They consume more information and likely make more of the buying decisions about healthcare services than their spouses. It’s only logical that they are therefore more concerned about quality healthcare, and having access to it, and perhaps less inclined to start companies or leave steady jobs for startups if they put these benefits at risk.

Never mind access to capital, and successful spring boarding programs that teach women start companies and raise capital—women with families are more inclined to protect the benefits that working in secure jobs affords them. We need a private exchange for entrepreneurs.

4. Put women on the board of directors and in private equity.

According to Steven Davidoff, as reported in The New York Times, “Women make up only 16 percent of directors at Fortune 500 companies, 4 percent of chief executives at Standard & Poor’s 500 companies and 10 percent of chief financial officers at S. & P. 500 companies.” Yet the track records of those companies outperform the others.

In anOctober New York Times article, Linda Rabbitt, founder of the Rand Construction Corporation, a construction firm based in Washington with more than $263 million in annual revenue, says: “Women are newer at this. It’s not just skills; they also need a network and know how to use it to find the right board fit.”

The bottom line is that this isn’t a waiting game—this requires more action, meaning that as women increasingly seek out these roles, VCs and CEOs should consciously be responsive and actively seek them out.

In the Boston Globe piece, Laura Sen, Chief Executive of BJ’s Wholesale Club puts it this way: “It’s never a random event when your intentions become reality. Now whether it looks like a policy or it looks like some other way of promoting this notion of women in the workplace or diversity, it has to be very intentional.”